We fear robots at work, but robotic jobs for humans are awful too

Even in workplaces where judgment used to count, people are increasingly treated like machines, says the Guardian columnist Gaby Hinsliff

Imagine being allowed to take as much paid holiday from work as you liked. All the time in the world, or at least as much as your guilty conscience will allow. A friend has just been offered this juicy-sounding perk by her company, and we mused over just how far it was reasonable to push it. A whole August off sounds tempting, but maybe it would be smarter to spin things out over a succession of long weekends. Or even to keep it as a get-out-of-jail-free card, deployed in case of burnout or rainy Mondays when you just can’t face getting out of bed.